Future of Boston Metro - Urbanism, Econ, Public Policy

fattony said:
And to your first point, the high cost of housing doesn't seem to be impacting the desirability of Boston at all. This place is growing. Fast.

Does lack of affordable housing decrease the desirability of New York? Not in the least. The high cost of living prices out almost everyone, and yet there are more and more people cramming into New York year after year. There are plenty of people who will bear the high price, even if you personally aren't one of them. Same goes for Boston.
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It's simple supply and demand. If prices go higher, that means supply is rising more slowly than demand. For prices to be lower, the supply of housing would have to rise more quickly, expanding the amount of housing available, therefore allowing more people to migrate. There are people who are priced out of Boston. The constraint on growth in a region is almost always related to the supply of housing, not the number of people willing (meaning there is any price for which they would choose Boston over another city)to move there.
 
bobthebuilder said:
And the main reason it works in NY is because of the access and availability of transit. People can easily get almost anywhere from almost anywhere, and most trips can be done in a two seat ride or less. Not to mention that the subway runs with pretty decent frequency 24hrs. The taxi system is better regulated and more useful. Plain and simple, you can easily live without a car in NYC. However in Boston, god forbid you want to go out for a night on the town, or you work the late shift, if you're out after the T is shut down, you're screwed, likely having to paying for a cab.

It all comes back to transit, we NEED to invests a ton of money in our public transit system. It also wouldn't hurt to have a metropolitan taxi authority, overseeing and regulating cabs in Brookline, Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville, that way they could pick up and drop off anywhere.
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I know the 24 hr transit is a goal but it is not a barrier to Boston's future growth. We aren't missing out on a bunch of people jobs and tax revenue from not having the 1am to 530 am mobility from east boston to jp.

Density is good, affordable housing but the future key is really JOBS. NYC, SF and Boston are growing because of jobs. Density and Transit allows people to spend less on transportation and more on housing. Over time both density and transit reach will have to spread. The central subway has not seen an investment in 40 years. Needs new cars and new signals for greater head ways. Density needs to be built up on each line, but ironically people resist it because the T "can't handle it"
 
Oakley said:
Boston needs to learn from San Francisco/Bay Area and their housing crisis:

http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/
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good article, I look forward to reading the rest of it at home. ONe thing that jumped out at me was the graph of Boston's population over time, and how it went from 800k in 1950 down to 560k in 1980 and has only gotten back up to 617k as of the 2010 census.

My questions are: a) how did the city function with so many people in that time? I just can't even picture it. (I was born in the 80's) and b) imagine what this city would look like with an extra 200k people in it now? It's going to get back there, we definitely need investments in transit ASAP.
 
bobthebuilder said:
good article, I look forward to reading the rest of it at home. ONe thing that jumped out at me was the graph of Boston's population over time, and how it went from 800k in 1950 down to 560k in 1980 and has only gotten back up to 617k as of the 2010 census.

My questions are: a) how did the city function with so many people in that time? I just can't even picture it. (I was born in the 80's) and b) imagine what this city would look like with an extra 200k people in it now? It's going to get back there, we definitely need investments in transit ASAP.
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Bigger households. My mother grew up in a two bedroom, first story of a triple-decker with eight to ten other people. Now that apartment has one person living in it.
 
BussesAin'tTrains said:
Bigger households. My mother grew up in a two bedroom, first story of a triple-decker with eight to ten other people. Now that apartment has one person living in it.
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Yes, and those bigger households held different demographics than dominate our 617,000 residents today. Children and the elderly have much less demand for transportation, especially when they live in a home with healthy, active adults. So even at 800,000 people it is quite possible the Boston of yesteryear needed less transportation infrastructure than today and yet it had more.

OK, that last sentence isn't quite true. Counting automobile infrastructure, obviously we have much more total transportation infrastructure than pre-1950. We just have much less public transportation infrastructure.
 
There are more housing units in Boston today vs. 1950 despite the population decrease from the 1950 peak. As others indicated the average number of people per each household unit has decreased both locally and nationally.
 
We Irish Catholics don't breed like rabbits anymore, so Southie isn't exactly like it was in All Soulshttp://www.amazon.com/All-Souls-Family-Story-Southie/dp/0807072133 these days.

The perception of Boston abroad, at least in my neck of the woods, is stellar. Japanese and Koreans can usually name NYC, LA, San Francisco and Boston when asked to list America's most important cities (often they throw in Las Vegas too, which may not help my argument here...). Japanese in particular think of Boston and London as being the centers of Western higher education. Half my Japanese office's leadership graduated from Emerson - this isn't an exaggeration.

One of Japan's largest finance / IT job placement companies annually runs a dual career forum, one in Tokyo and one in Boston (Boston's is held every November). Thousands of Tokyo's best and brightest new grads wait for hours to speak with Boston and New England-area firms searching for bilingual talent.

Whenever I meet someone new here and get around to the inevitable "so where are you actually from?" question, Japanese always gush about Boston. And not in the typical Japanese way of being polite to whomever you are speaking with - this is genuine nostalgia for / awe of Boston.
 
shawn said:
We Irish Catholics don't breed like rabbits anymore, so Southie isn't exactly like it was in All Soulshttp://www.amazon.com/All-Souls-Family-Story-Southie/dp/0807072133 these days.

The perception of Boston abroad, at least in my neck of the woods, is stellar. Japanese and Koreans can usually name NYC, LA, San Francisco and Boston when asked to list America's most important cities (often they throw in Las Vegas too, which may not help my argument here...). Japanese in particular think of Boston and London as being the centers of Western higher education. Half my Japanese office's leadership graduated from Emerson - this isn't an exaggeration.

One of Japan's largest finance / IT job placement companies annually runs a dual career forum, one in Tokyo and one in Boston (Boston's is held every November). Thousands of Tokyo's best and brightest new grads wait for hours to speak with Boston and New England-area firms searching for bilingual talent.

Whenever I meet someone new here and get around to the inevitable "so where are you actually from?" question, Japanese always gush about Boston. And not in the typical Japanese way of being polite to whomever you are speaking with - this is genuine nostalgia for / awe of Boston.
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Interesting. I'm betting the new non-stop flight between Boston and Tokyo helps. :)

Emerson? I'm not a school snob at all, but that's pretty impressive considering how many colleges in the Boston area are higher-ranked, richer and have more "prestige" than Emerson.
 
Atlantic Cities tackles gentrification in Somerville. My rent in Union Square is going up 10% next year compared to 3% last year. If that trend holds true for the next several year until the Green Line arrives, the wholesale demographics of Somerville could change dramatically. Way more than they already have in certain spots.
 
BussesAin'tTrains said:
Atlantic Cities tackles gentrification in Somerville. My rent in Union Square is going up 10% next year compared to 3% last year. If that trend holds true for the next several year until the Green Line arrives, the wholesale demographics of Somerville could change dramatically. Way more than they already have in certain spots.
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With the "luxury condo" article plus this, how do all these places command $3,000, $4,000, and $5,000/month in rent in the name of luxury? Not hating on them (I would love a place at 1330 Boylston if money was a fat cat) at all, but is there enough people pulling in that kind of money (I would argue $150,000+ before taxes) to fulfill this supply? While Boston has never been a poor city by any imagination, where is all of this money coming from all of the sudden? Are certain sectors booming right now with a ton of deep pockets?
 
Oakley said:
With the "luxury condo" article plus this, how do all these places command $3,000, $4,000, and $5,000/month in rent in the name of luxury? Not hating on them (I would love a place at 1330 Boylston if money was a fat cat) at all, but is there enough people pulling in that kind of money (I would argue $150,000+ before taxes) to fulfill this supply? While Boston has never been a poor city by any imagination, where is all of this money coming from all of the sudden? Are certain sectors booming right now with a ton of deep pockets?
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Hopefully without derailing this too far, I'd like to make the case that there are plenty of people who can afford these rents in Boston. Like, a lot.

$150k/year is a good salary, but it hardly rare. For example, that is the starting salary fresh out of law school at a "Big Law" firm, and they get 5-15% raises every year until making partner or being let go. 5 years out of law school, many white shoe lawyers are already pulling down a quarter million bucks.

So looking at just lawyers, you have a couple dozen newly minted Big Law attorneys throughout the city every year starting at $150k. Add in all the financiers, consultants, analysts, doctors, and some engineers that only need a couple years of work to break $150k. We aren't even talking about people over the age of 30 yet and there are probably several hundred if not several thousand people added to the pool of people who can afford a luxury apartment every year.

And then consider all the people who started in lower paying positions and climbed the ladder over the course of 10 or 15 years. Those people are in their 30's now and there is no shortage of highly paid 30-somethings in this city. Now add the retirees and empty nesters returning in droves from their 4000 square foot suburban palaces.

You'll know there aren't enough people to fill these places when they stop building them. The money has always been here, it has just been spent on old buildings instead of new. Massive renovations of Beacon Hill, Back Bay, and Southend townhouses don't make the front page of the Globe like a new tower does, but those kind of big money renos have been going on in Boston forever. Look for rental listing over $3000, $4000, $5000+ the are already a lot of them before any of these lux buildings hit the market.
 
I'd also add in that our extremely constricted supply means more people are forced into price points that are a reach. $150,000 is where you'd like to be, but we've probably also got people making less who have no other options. We've probably also got people who will pay a premium for new construction, which is even more of a constricted supply than the general pool. And we've also probably got a lot of people living in older/cheaper housing who'd prefer to move up or move into new construction if available, which it now is.
 
fattony said:
Hopefully without derailing this too far, I'd like to make the case that there are plenty of people who can afford these rents in Boston. Like, a lot.

$150k/year is a good salary, but it hardly rare. For example, that is the starting salary fresh out of law school at a "Big Law" firm, and they get 5-15% raises every year until making partner or being let go. 5 years out of law school, many white shoe lawyers are already pulling down a quarter million bucks.

So looking at just lawyers, you have a couple dozen newly minted Big Law attorneys throughout the city every year starting at $150k. Add in all the financiers, consultants, analysts, doctors, and some engineers that only need a couple years of work to break $150k. We aren't even talking about people over the age of 30 yet and there are probably several hundred if not several thousand people added to the pool of people who can afford a luxury apartment every year.

And then consider all the people who started in lower paying positions and climbed the ladder over the course of 10 or 15 years. Those people are in their 30's now and there is no shortage of highly paid 30-somethings in this city. Now add the retirees and empty nesters returning in droves from their 4000 square foot suburban palaces.

You'll know there aren't enough people to fill these places when they stop building them. The money has always been here, it has just been spent on old buildings instead of new. Massive renovations of Beacon Hill, Back Bay, and Southend townhouses don't make the front page of the Globe like a new tower does, but those kind of big money renos have been going on in Boston forever. Look for rental listing over $3000, $4000, $5000+ the are already a lot of them before any of these lux buildings hit the market.
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Thanks. I read a stat that nearly 20% of all households in the Boston region bring home $200k+, so I guess it adds up. With the tech and biotech/medical sectors taking off, I can see a lot of new wealth coming into the market. What's the standard rule for what percentage of one's paycheck they shouldn't exceed for rent/mortgage per month?

According to the ADP paycheck calculator, a single person with no children, with just one federal allowance and no deductions, I ran some net yearly salary income numbers that includes all taxes (federal, state, payroll taxes):

Gross Net
$80k $55,517
$100k $67,814
$150K $99,435
$175K $115,772
$200k $131,737
$250k $161,462
$300k $191,187
$400k $250,637


Speaking of the tech sector, here are two interesting articles:

http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/article/2014/04/29/bostons-technology-companies-gold-mine/

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2014/01/22/whats-really-wrong-with-boston-tech/
 
The number 30% for total housing expenses (rent/mortgage plus utilities and insurance, etc) gets thrown around a lot, but usually without specifying gross or net. I use 30% of NET as my guideline for affordability, but I've never actually exceeded 25% myself.

$3000/mo is $36k/year. At 30% that requires a next income of $120k and looking at your table that means gross income somewhere just shy of $200k.

I recall reading that $200k is the top 10% of earners in the Boston Metro, not sure why the dependency from your source of top 20%. The difference might be in what exactly constitutes the metro area. In any case, 10% or 20%, there are hundreds of thousands of households in metro Boston that can afford $3000 per month rent.
 
How many of them live or want to live in the inner metro area? A lot of those 10%-20% households are in the 'burbs, and not looking to move into the city. Still probably plenty of $200K earners for the city though, but at those rents, most people earning that much money will be looking to buy. Some of the slack is probably picked up by foreign nationals looking for crash-pads for their college students, or for a portfolio investment. Companies also occasionally lease units for employee assignments.
 
fattony said:
The number 30% for total housing expenses (rent/mortgage plus utilities and insurance, etc) gets thrown around a lot, but usually without specifying gross or net. I use 30% of NET as my guideline for affordability, but I've never actually exceeded 25% myself.

$3000/mo is $36k/year. At 30% that requires a next income of $120k and looking at your table that means gross income somewhere just shy of $200k.

I recall reading that $200k is the top 10% of earners in the Boston Metro, not sure why the dependency from your source of top 20%. The difference might be in what exactly constitutes the metro area. In any case, 10% or 20%, there are hundreds of thousands of households in metro Boston that can afford $3000 per month rent.
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BussesAin'tTrains said:
How many of them live or want to live in the inner metro area? A lot of those 10%-20% households are in the 'burbs, and not looking to move into the city. Still probably plenty of $200K earners for the city though, but at those rents, most people earning that much money will be looking to buy. Some of the slack is probably picked up by foreign nationals looking for crash-pads for their college students, or for a portfolio investment. Companies also occasionally lease units for employee assignments.
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Okay, it's 13% of all households in the Boston metro area.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/america-richest-poorest-cities-165424993.html

"5. Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, Mass.-N.H.
> Median household income: $71,738
> Population: 4,640,802 (10th highest)
> Unemployment rate: 6.1% (68th lowest)
> Poverty rate: 10.7% (24th lowest)

Compared with other metropolitan areas, the percentage of households earning over $200,000 in the Boston area is among the highest in the nation, at nearly 13%. One reason for this may be residents’ high levels of educational attainment. Last year, nearly 43% of adults over 25 had a college degree, well in excess of the national rate of 42.9%. Also, relatively high percentages of the workforce are involved in high-paying industries like financial services, as well as scientific and professional work -- 8.4% and 14.0%, respectively. As of 2012, the Boston area had an unemployment rate of just 6.1%, two percentage points better than the 8.1% national rate, while job growth has picked up in recent years. Further, over 95% of residents have health insurance, one of the highest rates in the nation."


Sounds like, however, the demand isn't exactly fulfilling the supply for all of these $3k+ apartments:

http://boston.curbed.com/archives/2014/01/stats-43.php#reader_comments
 
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